istinction in the higher forms of
literature and art. The Governments, at least, do their duty. Having
liberally provided for school education, they spend annually large sums
in making additions to picture-galleries, in maintaining libraries (of
which there are over eleven hundred), technological schools and museums,
and in other ways adding to the comfort and enlightenment of the people.
But large private contributions are rare, and the founding or endowment
of public institutions still rarer.

Of societies or clubs devoted specially to the interests of literature
there are very few--probably not half a dozen. Here and there among the
upper classes there are little coteries whose members read the English
and French reviews, and are well posted in all movements of interest in
the world of letters, but there is no actual organisation among them,
and they do not seek to extend their influence. Their ambition is
confined to providing for their personal improvement and pleasure. The
reading of the people, though extensive, is not serious nor in any way
specialised, unless a recent notably high average of borrowing in the
historical departments of a few of the free libraries be taken into
account. The leading book exporters in London say that throughout the
Antipodes the public demand is confined, as in England, mainly to the
'general' literature of the hour. 'Whatever has succeeded in London will
usually succeed in Australia' is the invariable remark of the exporter
and the first principle that guides his tentative selection in the case
of all newly-published works. The circulation of the best British weekly
and monthly reviews by some of the principal subscription libraries
helps the reader to choose for himself, but if he should wish to buy a
new book, however valuable, that has not become popular in the business
sense, he will probably have to send to London for it.

The wealthy people seem to select their reading-matter chiefly with a
view to entertainment. Not long ago the manager of one of the most
fashionable of the Melbourne circulating libraries said that about
ninety per cent. of the female and seventy-five per cent. of the male
frequenters of such libraries in Australia read only novels. But this
average is perhaps rather over-stated, being given at a time when there
was an exceptional demand for certain novels that had obtained notoriety
by an audacious treatment of sex questions and English society.

A glance